Bought and Sold: The Exploitation of Female Sexuality in a Market Driven Society

This article was originally posted on the YWCA USA blog. It is reposted with permission

Recently I’ve watched the sexual assault case against an extremely affluent international businessman unravel due to efforts to render the victim in-credible. The case kept coming up in the back of my mind (interrupting me really) when I sat down to work on this blog about image, beauty and women’s power. Then I turned to wonder… What if there’s a connection between the two? What if the beauty and image debate is part of a much larger (more significant) conversation about the use and abuse of women as currency in social and political games of power?

Let’s walk this one through…
In a market driven economy, enhancing female sex appeal has become a prime ingredient in sales campaigns targeting females from age six to sixty. The alarming part of it all is that children are being targeted for the same products directed at grown women.

 The same Skechers shapeup sneakers that sexy siren Kim Kardashian endorses as the key to keeping her “assets” in shape now come in size 2 for seven year old girls (to shape up what?!)

 A few months back, ABC reported that a mother was injecting her daughter with botox to prevent the signs of aging (at age eight?) to keep her in tip-top shape for the next round of kiddy pageants.

 Abercrombie and Fitch’s 2011 spring line of swimwear targeting girls as young as seven years old featured a padded, womanly shaped “push-up triangle,” bikini top (really?).

What’s the problem with this? These consumer-driven marketing tactics exploit an important developmental stage of play and wonderment by over-stimulating girls with products that prematurely direct attention to their sexuality.

In a Good Morning America interview about marketing and the psychology of children, Dr. Logan Levkoff, explained the problem well. She said, "We have a society where we sexualize little girls, almost from birth on... The fact is all these 'Toddlers and Tiaras' shows, the products, whether it's push-up bras for tween girls or shapeups for girls to firm their butts, all of this sends the message that our girls aren't good enough."

The net effect: Girls learn very early that in a market driven society, their power lay in their ability to buy products and sell themselves. In essence, their bodies and sexuality are used as currency in the very adult game of market place consumerism.

When we underestimate the significance of this sexual socialization, we do so to the detriment of being able to recognize the role it plays in the ongoing social phenomenon of objectification and violence that begins early and continues through out women’s lives.

I raise this issue against the backdrop of the rape allegations against Dominique Strauss-Khan because of how in this case too, female sexuality has become a pawn in larger social and political games of power. Only the accuser and alleged perpetrator know exactly what happened. But what we know for sure is that the case has gained its notoriety in some ways because of the stark contrasts in power and resources between the accused and the accuser.

It raises core issues about the collision of gender and power that occurs when a woman claims her right to pursue justice in the face of overwhelming social pressure. At various points there have been comments alluding to the rape allegation as a ploy to disposition Strauss-Khan as a candidate for the French presidency. The possibility of the Guinean immigrant and maid being raped has been overshadowed by the political forces that reposition her rape claim as a minor part in a larger plot to sabotage him politically.

In spite of the fact that the physical evidence collected for the investigation has not come into dispute, the main story has become the discrediting of an alleged rape victim as the now predator whose real aim is to make money and topple a presidential bid.

Here we see female sexuality, this time an alleged rape turned on its side to project the victim as the attacker, used as currency in a larger battle for social and political power.

In the case of marketing that targets little girls for products that are really meant for grown women, as well as with the Guinean housekeeper whose sexual assault allegations are being obscured by politics and violations of power, both young and old find their sexuality objectified and thus violated.

Taken together the situations represent an arc from adolescence through adulthood that points to social processes at play in culture that dis-empower women through their sexuality.

So, where does this leave us?

It leaves me more and more aware of how what I say and do around little girls matters. In a society that would commodify their curiosities about womanhood, one of the most important things we can supply them with is encounters that do not encourage them to buy and sell themselves. Our girls are watching how we walk through the world for cues on how to be. That’s why it’s equally important to point out to them the ways that society unjustly exploits women for selfish social and political motives.

It’s never too early, and (woman to woman) it’s never too late to defy disempowering processes in society. Remember...you’re worth it!